Oh, Oh, Oh, It's Magic
by pickalily
Summary: Her coffee is too good to be true and when he asks her how she makes it she just smiles and tells him it's magic.
1. Coffee

"I know you're a fan of the whole shut-in thing and it has it's own appeal," Erwin said, walking way too briskly with his long, long legs. "I mean, you get to avoid people, which I know you love doing, but I'm still surprised you've never been to Café Maria. It's quiet, reclusive, and has great coffee. Doesn't that suit you perfectly?" He shot Levi a broad grin and the short man scowled at him. Most girls would have swooned if Erwin smiled at them but Levi only felt annoyed.

"I don't like coffee," Levi responded, fixing the strap on his messenger bag so it would quite digging into his shoulder.

Erwin raised an eyebrow. "Really? You?"

Levi shrugged. "I don't need anymore bitterness in my life," he said simply, following his friend's quick strides. "Here's a better question: Why am I even going?"

Erwin held the door open for Levi and Levi was hit with the overwhelming scent of roasted coffee beans, something he wasn't particularly fond of because of the bitter liquid it produced. "Free wifi?" Erwin guessed. He followed closely behind Levi, ticking off his fingers as he listed out reasons. "The ambiance, the good customer service, the lack of people. Take your pick. I'm also paying for your coffee so that might be why." He waved at a ginger-haired girl in a green apron walking briskly past them, a pair of wings stitched to her chest.

She smiled brightly at him after handing orders to two customers sitting at a table nearby. The girl brushed her hands off on her apron and walked up to Erwin and Levi. "Hi, Erwin! It's always nice to see you drop by," she said, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. She looked at Levi and tilted her head curiously. "I don't think I've met you before though…?"

"Levi," he answered.

"Levi," she repeated and smiled at him, dimples appearing in her cheeks, and the first thought that appears in his head is, goddammit, she's cute. "I'm Petra. It's nice to meet you." She offered a hand out to him and he took it, surprised at how nice and warm her hand is, how strong and firm her grip is.  
"I brought him here because he's been grumbling about how noisy it is in the library on campus," Erwin chuckled. "And also because he hates coffee. Who better to get him to like it than you?"

Petra beamed the tall blonde before turning to Levi. "Don't worry! You definitely came to the right place! And I know exactly what to make for you two." She hurried off behind the counter, giving them half a wave before she disappeared to make their coffee.

Levi raised an eyebrow. "Wasn't she supposed to take our orders first?"

Erwin shrugged. "They never take orders here," he replied, leading Levi to some empty seats at the counter. He sat down easily, resting his arm on the countertop. "You just walk in and they'll have your order ready in a couple of minutes."

He sat next to Erwin, a skeptical look on his face. "But how do they know if that's what you want."

"It's not about what you want," another voice answered. Levi and Erwin looked up to see Petra, two steaming drinks in her hands. "It's about what you need." She placed the beverages on the countertop and pushed them towards Levi and Erwin.

Erwin took the cup and raised it to his lips without hesitation. After taking a sip, he closed his eyes and seemed to be in deep bliss, a content smile on his face. He finally opened his blue eyes and grinned widely at Petra. "Another amazing brew, Petra," he praised, taking another sip. "How do you do it?"

"Magic!" she replied cheerfully.

Erwin chuckled but Levi raised an eyebrow at the strange and somewhat childish reply, but maybe she just wanted to keep her brewing methods a secret.

"Levi?" Erwin said, looking expectantly at the coffee hovering in Levi's hand.

Levi was about to scowl at his friend but realized that Petra was looking at him with apprehension, wondering what he'd think of her drink, and he lifted the drink to his lips tentatively, getting ready for the bitter coffee to scorch his throat. Instead, a pleasantly warm liquid coated his tongue and throat. While it was bitter, it wasn't overwhelmingly so and he found himself quite enjoying the taste. There was a tiny tinge of sweetness nipping at the tip of his tongue but something else too and he closed his eyes to concentrate and figure out what it was. He took another sip, a larger one this time, and let the flavor fill his mouth before he swallowed. It was bitter, sweet, and _felt_ like something. It felt like staying in on a rainy day, the curtains drawn and the lights dim, while he was wrapped up in a cocoon of blankets with Pushing Daisies playing on his laptop. How the fuck did she manage to put _that_ in her coffee? He greedily took another sip and choked on his coffee from drinking it too fast.

Alarmed, Erwin began hitting his friend roughly on the back. (If anything, that made everything much worse and Levi almost stopped choking to tell Erwin that he was an idiot.) "Levi! Are you okay?"

"Fine," Levi spluttered, waving Erwin off.

Petra looked at him, her big, amber eyes filled with concerned. "I'm so sorry," she said, biting her lip. A few employees and customers had begun gawking. "Was it that bad?"

"Did you almost kill a customer because your coffee was so bad?" a cashier snickered.

"Shut up, Auruo!" Petra snapped. She was almost o the verge of tears now.

"No!" Levi almost shouted. Crap, he felt so bad for making _her_ feel bad and making her think that her coffee was shit when in reality it was amazingly fantastic. "I just…It's really, really good. I was surprised at how good it was and drank it too fast." God, now he sounded stupidly but hopefully now she'd understand that it wasn't because she was bad at making coffee.

"Oh," she said, relieved. Her mouth spread into a wide grin and those adorable dimples appeared again. Levi could feel himself fighting off a blush. "Thank you so much! I'm glad you like it."

Erwin rested his chin in his hand and gave Levi a smirk. "Petra's a coffee angel," he said.

Petra rolled her eyes but smiled at the compliment and Levi stared at her. "But, really," he said, remembering how just one sip of the beverage made him feel. Heck, just smelling the earthy aroma right now was beginning to take him back to that comforting feeling. "How do you do it?"

She smiled, giving him a little shrug. "Magic!"

xxx

He came back every day for the next two weeks and, just as Erwin had told him, he would be greeted at the front door and Petra would deliver a perfect caffeinated to him in a few minutes without fail. Each drink would be different. Sometimes a drink would take him back to his childhood, a single sip reminding him of lying in the grass and watching the clouds form figures with his friends Isabel and Farlan beside him. Other times it would be his first kiss, the faint press of lips on his from a nice girl he couldn't quite recall. But each one was different and, strangely enough, exactly what he needed that day.

She often talked to him when she wasn't busy with making orders. He liked the way she tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear before she said something and how the sunlight streaming in the window made her hair look golden when it hit her just right. He soon learned her laugh sounded like bells, soft and tinkling, and that her eyes were the same color as golden amber. While he wasn't a person who liked company very much, he found her presence rather pleasant and always felt a twinge of disappointment whenever she excused herself to go serve a customer. Erwin teased him a couple of times about going back to the café more for Petra than the coffee and Levi would scowl, but the blonde may have been right. After all, he was right about the coffee shop.

When Petra was working, Levi watched Petra as she made orders as he sat from what was now his regular table in the corner of the café. She was always cheerful and bright, greeting everyone that came in by name. She was careful when making her orders, always incredibly focused when she was behind the counter. He noticed that she would hold whatever she made in her hands for a while and close her eyes, her lips moving like she was saying something but he didn't know what. Occasionally she would even do foam art, drawing symbols onto coffee for people, meticulously making sure every stroke was just right. Every customer she served came away happy, no matter what mood they entered the shop in, and he sometimes wondered why Café Maria didn't have more customers.

"How do you do that?" he asked after finishing yet another one of her mystical coffees. He wasn't sure if he was referring to the coffee or the weird pounding in his chest whenever he saw her that she could probably hear because it was so damn loud.

She smiled and, goddamn, there were those adorable dimples again. "I told you before," she laughed. "It's magic."

And this time he almost believed her. Almost.

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 _A/N: I guess writing fics while I'm procrastinating is just a bad habit of mine, hahaha. Well, I hope you enjoyed this. I decided Rivetra needed a magical coffee shop AU so I wrote one. I'll expand more about this with a couple of more chapters but I hope you guys have enjoyed it so far. I don't know when the next update is because I should be working on my other multi-chaptered fics but the latest an update will come will probably be two months._

 _Reviews are always appreciated so leave one if you have time and thank you!_


	2. Coffee Swirls

**A/N: Someone told me I was pretty yesterday so I needed to share warm and fluffy feelings with everyone.**

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Hanji took a loud slurp of the coffee Petra just made for them and smacked their lips exaggeratedly. "That really hits the spot!" they sighed. Hanji's eyes were closed and they had a serene smile on their face, as if nothing in the world could bother them. They opened an eye lazily and rested their head on their hand, leaning against the counter. "If you didn't have a mystery man, I'd totally propose to you right now, Petra."

Petra made a face. "I have a mystery man?" She and her friends were currently standing around the counter. It was two in the afternoon and the café didn't typically get a lot of business around that hour so she and the rest of the baristas could afford to just stand around a chat. Aside from Hanji, there were only a couple of other stragglers there who were either sleeping or just mooching off of the free Wi-fi at the café even though they finished their drink an hour ago.

"You have _someone_ ," Eld said, a smirk on his face. "Someone short. Grumpy. Usually comes in at two-thirty on the dot." His grin grew even bigger once he saw her face redden as she realized whom he was referring to.

"Yeah, that guy you nearly killed the first time he came in!" snorted Auruo from the register. "What a great way to welcome someone to the café! Apparently it was his first time trying coffee too. I'm surprised you didn't completely turn him off caffeine after that."

"Shut up, Auruo! He just drank it too fast," Petra said. She glared at the sandy-haired cashier and he stuck his tongue out at her in response.

"And Petra's coffee really is the best," Gunter piped up from behind them. He joined them at the counter, taking a break from all of his baking, and smiled over at Petra. She was about to thank him for the compliment and reward him with her own smile until he said, "Also, mystery man has been here for weeks and had Petra make his coffee every time. _And_ he made sure to come here during the least busy business hours just so he can talk to her. Lengthy conversations too."

Hanji squealed while Petra glared at Gunter. "His name his Levi and he's a friend who just happens to like my coffee and my company."

"She likes him," Eld translated, causing Hanji to howl with laughter and Petra to slap his arm.

Hanji wiped a tear from their eye and, after regaining her composure, said, "Hey, I can make you a love potion for him if you want!"

"No!" everyone screamed.

Hanji looked highly offended.

"The last time you made one, the guy fell in love with _everything_ ," Auruo said, shuddering. "He confessed to me like ten times. I was pretty flattered until he ran across the street to go confess to a particularly large willow tree across campus. If I recall correctly, he had to be isolated for three whole days before he got back to normal."

"Psh, that was a year ago," Hanji said, waving their hand around as if a horrifically failed love potion was nothing to be frightened about. "I've gotten better at my potion-making, I swear!"

"You barely passed the potions exam. I doubt you've made a potion ever since you took the class last semester," Eld pointed out.

"Hey, passing is passing!" they said indignantly. They turned to Petra and gave her their most adorable pouting face. "Please, please, please let me do this, Petra. I will do anything to get you together with the love of your life because that's what good friends do."

Eld wrapped his arms protectively around Petra's head. "Stay away from the love of Petra's life!"

"Could you quit calling him that?" Petra spluttered. She untangled herself from Eld's embrace and fixed her hair. "I'll admit that I think he's cute and that I might have a teensy weensy crush on him but I do not need a love potion." She gave Hanji a stern look as she said the last part.

"Yeah, Petra already has a ton of charm," Gunter said. "It's obvious he likes her. Why would he be coming to the coffee shop every day if he didn't?"

"Because he likes my coffee," Petra said glumly. "I might have just been reading into it too much. I mean, no one would take this long to ask a girl out, right?"

"Maybe he's too scared because he thinks you don't like _him._ " Hanji studied Petra for a bit before proceeding further. "Are you being noticeably nicer to him than to other people or are you just being Petra-nice?"

Petra snorted. "What does that even mean?"

Her friends shared glances before Eld answered for all of them. "Well, Pet, you're pretty friendly to everyone. Even the mailman."

"Petra's not nice to me," Auruo pointed out.

"Shut up, Auruo!" they all chorused except for Hanji who piped up with a "No one's nice to you."

"If you're so impatient, why don't you just ask him out, Pet?" Eld asked, ignoring Auruo's sulking.

She twirled a lock of hair around her finger. To be honest, she didn't have a preference on who made the first move. She would have asked him out on the third day but she didn't want to beat him to the punch if he was planning on asking her first. "He always looked like he was about to do the asking but would always ask him at the last sentence. Maybe he just wants to be friends."

"Petra, Petra, Petra," Hanji said, shaking their head. "Nobody wants to be just your friend. Literally any one of us would be ecstatic to have you as more than just a friend." They glanced at Eld and frowned. "Except Eld but that's because he already has a girlfriend."

"Maybe Levi has a girlfriend," Petra said aloud.

"Stop bumming yourself out for no reason. You need your cute smile if you want to win your favorite customer over." Gunter jabbed Petra in the side before she could come back with a witty retort and jerked his head to the door where Levi was walking in. "But I highly doubt he has a girlfriend," he whispered to her before disappearing to the back of the café to check on his pastries.

Hanji gave a low whistle. "So this is the famous Levi." They took a look at clock hanging on the wall and smirk. "Two-thirty on the dot, just like you said."

"Don't say a word," Petra hissed at her friend through gritted teeth as she gave Levi a smile and a wave.

He gave her a head nod and was about to take his regular seat in the corner when Hanji waved at him, much to Petra's embarrassment.

"Levi, is it?" Hanji asked, their voice so loud that it pretty much echoed throughout the entire room. They held out a hand for him to shake, talking all of the while. "Petra was telling me all about you."

Petra was half expecting him to not come over at all but he did eventually come over, taking a seat next to Hanji at the counter and shaking their hand. "Did she really?" he asked. His tone made him seem like he was uninterested but that slight head tilt and little eyebrow raise said otherwise.

"She did," Hanji said happily at the same time Petra claimed the very opposite. This prompted a very smug look on Levi's face. "I'm Hanji, by the way. I study alchemy at the same university Petra does."

"Alchemy," he repeated. "Right." Although Petra had repeatedly been telling him about witchcraft and the magic school she went to, he had simply refused to believe it. He used to be lot more vocal in his disbelief but now he just silently sat there in grudging acceptance. At least he stopped asking her what drugs she put in the coffee.

"You want coffee now, right?" Petra asked Levi, desperate to get out of the conversation before Hanji could embarrass her any further. "I'll be back in a few minutes." She scurried off before Levi – or Hanji, for the matter – could say anymore.

When she got to the back, an amused Gunter was waiting for her. "Looks like Hanji is throwing you off your game. Isn't Levi normally the flustered one when it comes to your afternoon conversations?"

"Don't talk about it," Petra groaned, burying her head in her hands.

He patted her on the head sympathetically. "Want me to get rid of them?"

"Please. I love Hanji but they're probably going to slip him a love potion and make him fall in love with Auruo or something."

"Alright-y," Gunter chuckled. "They're late for a class anyway. They told me they had necromancy at two-thirty."

She probably should have felt bad that she had essentially had Gunter kick Hanji out but she couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief when she heard her friend let out a slew of expletives upon being reminded that they were currently missing a class, scuttling out of the coffee shop with a couple of loud goodbyes and a slam of the door after them.

Making a cup of coffee soothed her nerves and, after she had calmed down completely, an idea popped into her head. As soon as she had finished making a cup of cappuccino (something that she could, if she really wanted to, make with her eyes closed), she brought it over, a hot pitcher of milk in her hand. She occasionally did foam art in front of customers, especially if there was a little kid in tow.

"How was talking to Hanji?" she asked casually. She was itching to ask him what they talked about but doubted that he'd actually tell her. It was difficult to even worm the most mundane of information from him at times although he was gradually opening up to her after these few weeks.

"Interesting," Levi replied. He nodded at the pitcher in her hand. "Foam art?"

"Yup. You get to watch up close today." Truthfully, foam art wasn't really her expertise but she had been working at it for a while enough to consider herself decent. Eld was actually the best at it but doing this herself would make her plan more effective.

"What's that?" Levi said, watching as she carefully poured the creamy milk onto the caramel-foam of the espresso that sat in front of him. He had watched her do this a dozen times although he typically only watched her from afar until now.

Petra set the little, metal pitcher aside and smiled happily at the little swirls in the cup, content with her artwork. A delicate flower with four thin petals sat on the espresso. "It's a flower. This'll give you confidence," she said cheerfully. She liked to tell him what the different pictures she drew were of, even if he still didn't fully accept the idea of magical coffee.

He raised an eyebrow and shrugged. "Alright. I don't know what I need confidence for but you have yet to dissatisfy me." He reached for the cup but Petra reached out and quickly grabbed his wrist to stop him.

"That's not for you," she said quickly. Realizing she was still holding onto him, she let go. It may have been her imagination, but she could have sworn that there was a flicker of disappointment in his eyes when her hand left his wrist.

"Oh?"

"It's mine," she said apologetically. She raised the cup to her lips and took a large swig. It was like drinking liquid sunshine. The warmth spilled down her throat, filling up her belly and spilled over her lungs, wrapping her heart in it. It was the feeling that, no matter what happened, things would turn out just the way she wanted.

"What do you need luck for?" he asked curiously.

"Because I wanted to know," she replied, lowering the cup onto the counter, "if you wanted to go out with me."

His facial expression hardly changed but a flush of red was coloring his cheeks and Petra couldn't help but laugh.

"Why are you embarrassed? Shouldn't I be the one blushing right now?" she teased.

"I think I'll need the rest of that," he mumbled, taking the cup and downing the rest of its contents.

"What for?" Petra asked, a giggle escaping her lips.

"For this," he said. He leaned across the counter and reached over to cup a side of her face in his hand, bringing her face close to his. He pressed a tentative kiss against her lips, something that tasted like first love, hope, and a hint of coffee. He pulled away a little too soon, Petra thought, but it was more daring than he usually was and she was sure there were many more kisses to come in the future. He was still blushing slightly but the corners of his mouth were tugged upward in a shy smile. "That's a yes."

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 **A/N: Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed! Feel free to leave a comment below or visit my tumblr at: pickalilywrites**


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